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I know people here love to hate it, and it's a very very controversial topic, but this here, is a good use case for Bitcoin [1] Now that we have Lightning and

I know people here love to hate it, and it's a very very controversial topic, but this here, is a good use case for Bitcoin [1] Now that we have Lightning and hyperfast micropayments, can we have a good plug-and-play payment processor that uses it? The few services that allow Bitcoin payments still require an on-chain transaction, which is very user-unfriendly. In any case, despite what the haters say, this is the value proposition of cryptos. If it's not the government deciding what you can purchase or not, it's the payment processor cartel. 1: Other cryptos are just piggybacking on the popularity of the main one so I don't care about them.

fmbb 1y ago
Bitcoin existing is not going to make Itch.io not want to accept payments via Visa. Porn is a tiny market. It’s not worth it losing the payment processors everyone is on to serve porn game buyers.
- uncircle 1y ago
  > Porn is a tiny market. I'm not sure I agree. In the context of gaming, perhaps, but most of the Internet traffic is basically pornography.
  - fmbb 1y ago
    When I say market here I mean something people pay for, where producers can convince people to spend money. I’m quite sure there is not a lot of people paying for porn. The money people are making surely comes from ads and data hoarding.
- beeflet 1y ago
  >Porn is a tiny market. It’s not worth it losing the payment processors everyone is on to serve porn game buyers. I agree with this point but I don't agree with the premise. I don't really care about the censorship of porn, but it is a slippery slope to censorship in general. If you give them an inch they will take a mile. I think there is sometimes a business justification of putting your foot in the ground, even if the short term consequences are harsh.
  - fmbb 1y ago
    I’m not making a value judgement here. Just looking at it from the point of view of a business.
odo1242 1y ago
Don’t you have to create a distinct payment channel (on-chain transaction) for every person you pay over Lightning? Or am I misunderstanding things?
- uncircle 1y ago
  Third-parties take care of this bureaucracy for you. Check out the Phoenix wallet, for example. (Unaffiliated, I hold some pocket money on there not to run a Lightning node myself) The on-chain transaction is just to "fund" a channel between two parties. These two parties can then make unlimited trasnfers between each other instantaneously for free. These nodes are organised in a network and can relay payment from other nodes as well. It's a bit like the Internet. You don't need to peer with everybody, you just need a path from A to B. If you and I have a channel funded with 100 sat, we can move these around as many times as we wish, even on behalf of others, but if you need to transfer more than you have on your side, you need to fund the channel with another on-chain transaction. That's where the Phoenix 1% fee comes from, as they deal with this exact problem for you, so you don't have to worry about it.
  - beeflet 1y ago
    >Third-parties take care of this bureaucracy for you. Check out the Phoenix wallet, for example. Sort of defeats the purpose then, doesn't it? Why not just make lightning payments directly from your bitcoin exchange?
    - littlecranky67 1y ago
      In the case of Phoenix, you have semi-custody - i.e. control over your coin, and it can't be taken from you. There are other non-custodial wallets (Wallet of Satoshi) which are like an exchange - so they can rug pull you anytime just as Paypal can.
  - odo1242 1y ago
    Ah, I see
- 1y ago
nonameiguess 1y ago
It's not in this case. The payment processors were going to drop all support to these platforms if they didn't remove these games. Bitcoin could allow them to keep operating, but at the cost that now all users who want any games at all have to use Bitcoin. Mainstream platforms accepting Bitcoin as an option is fine and great, but few if any are going to want to only accept Bitcoin.
- KronisLV 1y ago
  > Mainstream platforms accepting Bitcoin as an option is fine and great, but few if any are going to want to only accept Bitcoin. For all of the talk (hype) about how crypto has the potential to avoid the exact type of meddling and manipulation and pressuring we’re seeing now, it surprises me that no equivalents to PayPal have really popped up - that best that can be done is apparently something along the lines of what Linux was on the desktop a decade or two ago. Basically, before Valve and others picked up the slack and worked on things your average person actually cares about - notably, gaming and simple(r) to use desktop environments and software stores. Where’s the flagship platform for payments that’s built on crypto but lets you ignore the technical details, that’s trivial to implement as a merchant and is a download away on app stores? If there are a few of those, why would anyone bother with these puritan payment processors?
  - bornfreddy 1y ago
    There are many actually, some extremely simple to use. The problem is that payers also need to use crypto and many people don't know how, but are instead used to paying with credit cards.
  - barbazoo 1y ago
    Isn't that what Monero is trying to do? Why can't I pay with Monero at the grocery store? Presumably because some gatekeeper that's in between me and the business has to decide whether it makes financial sense _to them_ whether to add Monero to the exclusive list of supported payment methods.
- beeflet 1y ago
egypturnash 1y ago
Random thoughts: * anything using proof-of-work is still gonna be a hard sell * good luck figuring out how to get the user experience on both ends appear to be in USD without ever having to give a shit about the constantly-fluctuating value of BTC * fun times ahead when you get big enough for the government to notice you and start requiring you to comply with all kinds of arcane regulations
- uncircle 1y ago
  1. Proof-of-work is a feature. 2. Just do the conversion at the time of sale. 3. Government prohibition and restriction of our rights is a terrible problem and it's why Bitcoin was invented in the first place. It's a necessary fight if only to keep government power in check, unless one really believes the State is always right and always has our best interest in mind. I don't.
  - egypturnash 1y ago
    The colossal amount of energy burnt by proof-of-work is one of the reasons people who are not cryptobros loathe crypto.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- beeflet 1y ago
  >good luck figuring out how to get the user experience on both ends appear to be in USD I think it works out fine with fixed/float exchanges. These are exchanges that let you agree on a fixed exchange rate for a small (<=%1 fee) or trade at a floating exchange rate. The fee covers the price risk
burkaman 1y ago
If Steam dropped Visa and Mastercard and successfully got most of their customers to use a Bitcoin payment processor instead, wouldn't these organizations just pressure that processor? I don't see how it would be any different. If the problem you're trying to solve is that private payment processors can deny service to anyone they don't like, the underlying technology the processor uses is irrelevant.
- beeflet 1y ago
  Well I think the advantage is that the cryptocurrency payment processors are interchangeable. But your point mostly stands
- mkleczek 1y ago
  Bitcoin does not require any payment processor. That's its whole point: censorship-resistant, permissionless, p2p payment system.
  - vel0city 1y ago
    Bitcoin won't require a payment processor, but companies wanting to effectively handle Bitcoin will want a payment processor or else they will have to become one themselves. Even companies working in large amounts of cash end up hiring companies to handle the cash logistics and all the other complications in dealing with it.
    - mkleczek 1y ago
      I am not sure why any middle man is needed to "effectively" handle Bitcoin. It is a very liquid asset - easy to move and easy to sell.
      - Fargren 1y ago
        You want to handle refunds, fraud, money laundering, chargebacks... That stuff is really hard, and if it's not your main line of business, you really don't want to do it. And if you don't have a payment processor do it, and you don't do it yourself, criminals will scam your customers and use your platform to commit fraud and launder money and you will get in hot water with the law. Bitcoin can be used as currency for occasional transactions between individuals. But you don't want your business to depend on it. It doesn't scale, not due to technological reasons, but because of legal issues and customer experience expectation.
rustystump 1y ago
The fact that the majority of validators caved to sanctions from us means bitcoin is not gonna cut it esp if uncle sam gets involved. Pro crypto folks want to stay on the up and up due to trying to change the negative view of it. I personally worked in the crypto payment processing space and we had to say no to many very well known porn companies for this reason.

fmbb 1y ago

Bitcoin existing is not going to make Itch.io not want to accept payments via Visa. Porn is a tiny market. It’s not worth it losing the payment processors everyone is on to serve porn game buyers.

uncircle 1y ago
> Porn is a tiny market. I'm not sure I agree. In the context of gaming, perhaps, but most of the Internet traffic is basically pornography.
- fmbb 1y ago
  When I say market here I mean something people pay for, where producers can convince people to spend money. I’m quite sure there is not a lot of people paying for porn. The money people are making surely comes from ads and data hoarding.
beeflet 1y ago
>Porn is a tiny market. It’s not worth it losing the payment processors everyone is on to serve porn game buyers. I agree with this point but I don't agree with the premise. I don't really care about the censorship of porn, but it is a slippery slope to censorship in general. If you give them an inch they will take a mile. I think there is sometimes a business justification of putting your foot in the ground, even if the short term consequences are harsh.
- fmbb 1y ago
  I’m not making a value judgement here. Just looking at it from the point of view of a business.

odo1242 1y ago

Don’t you have to create a distinct payment channel (on-chain transaction) for every person you pay over Lightning? Or am I misunderstanding things?

uncircle 1y ago
Third-parties take care of this bureaucracy for you. Check out the Phoenix wallet, for example. (Unaffiliated, I hold some pocket money on there not to run a Lightning node myself) The on-chain transaction is just to "fund" a channel between two parties. These two parties can then make unlimited trasnfers between each other instantaneously for free. These nodes are organised in a network and can relay payment from other nodes as well. It's a bit like the Internet. You don't need to peer with everybody, you just need a path from A to B. If you and I have a channel funded with 100 sat, we can move these around as many times as we wish, even on behalf of others, but if you need to transfer more than you have on your side, you need to fund the channel with another on-chain transaction. That's where the Phoenix 1% fee comes from, as they deal with this exact problem for you, so you don't have to worry about it.
- beeflet 1y ago
  >Third-parties take care of this bureaucracy for you. Check out the Phoenix wallet, for example. Sort of defeats the purpose then, doesn't it? Why not just make lightning payments directly from your bitcoin exchange?
  - littlecranky67 1y ago
    In the case of Phoenix, you have semi-custody - i.e. control over your coin, and it can't be taken from you. There are other non-custodial wallets (Wallet of Satoshi) which are like an exchange - so they can rug pull you anytime just as Paypal can.
- odo1242 1y ago
  Ah, I see
1y ago

nonameiguess 1y ago

It's not in this case. The payment processors were going to drop all support to these platforms if they didn't remove these games. Bitcoin could allow them to keep operating, but at the cost that now all users who want any games at all have to use Bitcoin. Mainstream platforms accepting Bitcoin as an option is fine and great, but few if any are going to want to only accept Bitcoin.

KronisLV 1y ago
> Mainstream platforms accepting Bitcoin as an option is fine and great, but few if any are going to want to only accept Bitcoin. For all of the talk (hype) about how crypto has the potential to avoid the exact type of meddling and manipulation and pressuring we’re seeing now, it surprises me that no equivalents to PayPal have really popped up - that best that can be done is apparently something along the lines of what Linux was on the desktop a decade or two ago. Basically, before Valve and others picked up the slack and worked on things your average person actually cares about - notably, gaming and simple(r) to use desktop environments and software stores. Where’s the flagship platform for payments that’s built on crypto but lets you ignore the technical details, that’s trivial to implement as a merchant and is a download away on app stores? If there are a few of those, why would anyone bother with these puritan payment processors?
- bornfreddy 1y ago
  There are many actually, some extremely simple to use. The problem is that payers also need to use crypto and many people don't know how, but are instead used to paying with credit cards.
- barbazoo 1y ago
  Isn't that what Monero is trying to do? Why can't I pay with Monero at the grocery store? Presumably because some gatekeeper that's in between me and the business has to decide whether it makes financial sense _to them_ whether to add Monero to the exclusive list of supported payment methods.
beeflet 1y ago

egypturnash 1y ago

Random thoughts: * anything using proof-of-work is still gonna be a hard sell * good luck figuring out how to get the user experience on both ends appear to be in USD without ever having to give a shit about the constantly-fluctuating value of BTC * fun times ahead when you get big enough for the government to notice you and start requiring you to comply with all kinds of arcane regulations

uncircle 1y ago
1. Proof-of-work is a feature. 2. Just do the conversion at the time of sale. 3. Government prohibition and restriction of our rights is a terrible problem and it's why Bitcoin was invented in the first place. It's a necessary fight if only to keep government power in check, unless one really believes the State is always right and always has our best interest in mind. I don't.
- egypturnash 1y ago
  The colossal amount of energy burnt by proof-of-work is one of the reasons people who are not cryptobros loathe crypto.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
beeflet 1y ago
>good luck figuring out how to get the user experience on both ends appear to be in USD I think it works out fine with fixed/float exchanges. These are exchanges that let you agree on a fixed exchange rate for a small (<=%1 fee) or trade at a floating exchange rate. The fee covers the price risk

burkaman 1y ago

If Steam dropped Visa and Mastercard and successfully got most of their customers to use a Bitcoin payment processor instead, wouldn't these organizations just pressure that processor? I don't see how it would be any different. If the problem you're trying to solve is that private payment processors can deny service to anyone they don't like, the underlying technology the processor uses is irrelevant.

beeflet 1y ago
Well I think the advantage is that the cryptocurrency payment processors are interchangeable. But your point mostly stands
mkleczek 1y ago
Bitcoin does not require any payment processor. That's its whole point: censorship-resistant, permissionless, p2p payment system.
- vel0city 1y ago
  Bitcoin won't require a payment processor, but companies wanting to effectively handle Bitcoin will want a payment processor or else they will have to become one themselves. Even companies working in large amounts of cash end up hiring companies to handle the cash logistics and all the other complications in dealing with it.
  - mkleczek 1y ago
    I am not sure why any middle man is needed to "effectively" handle Bitcoin. It is a very liquid asset - easy to move and easy to sell.
    - Fargren 1y ago
      You want to handle refunds, fraud, money laundering, chargebacks... That stuff is really hard, and if it's not your main line of business, you really don't want to do it. And if you don't have a payment processor do it, and you don't do it yourself, criminals will scam your customers and use your platform to commit fraud and launder money and you will get in hot water with the law. Bitcoin can be used as currency for occasional transactions between individuals. But you don't want your business to depend on it. It doesn't scale, not due to technological reasons, but because of legal issues and customer experience expectation.

rustystump 1y ago

The fact that the majority of validators caved to sanctions from us means bitcoin is not gonna cut it esp if uncle sam gets involved. Pro crypto folks want to stay on the up and up due to trying to change the negative view of it. I personally worked in the crypto payment processing space and we had to say no to many very well known porn companies for this reason.